Build of Shipyard Brewery – 1 of 6

This is “Shipyard Brewery”. Started this today, and got a lot done with it. This particular model kit is what’s called a “false front” building. The kit is designed to build only the front half of the building, and there would be no “back” to it – with the intention of placing it ag…ainst a wall on your model railroad “layout”. If it’s against a wall, your visitors wouldn’t be able to see its rear side, so, there’s no need to build the back half.

Well, I bought this kit a few months ago, and I don’t have a “layout” (yet), so I really didn’t like the idea of having just a half of a building, so I bought a second copy of the kit last week. I think the retail price is about $100, but I got both kits for around $65 each on eBay. The idea I got a few weeks ago was to buy this second copy and combine the two half structures into one complete building.

Of course, as you can see, the front side of the building has an enclosed exterior staircase, as well as something extending outward on the front right side. I didn’t want the back of the building to look exactly like the front, so I’m putting the second (from kit #2) staircase on the left wall of the building, and the second extension on the right wall of the building. This leaves the rear wall completely flat. And, I was also able to reverse the rear wall such that the various windows and barn doors are reversed. Yes, this is confusing. They say a pic is worth a thousand words.

Still got lots left to do, I’ve only weathered one wall so far – a side wall. Still need to weather (“scratch up”) the other three walls. I read an article recently, and this guy mentioned putting on rubber cement on various areas of the walls – before priming/painting them. Once the cement is dry, you would then paint the walls, and afterwards, you would scrape the rubber cement off, and that would then leave bare wood areas, like the paint had fallen off over the yrs. I tried this – you can see splotches / circles on the gray primer’ed walls – that’s the rubber cement. I don’t think I applied enough (in thickness), since, after I painted the walls, it was hard to find the rubber cemented areas, and even if I found them, it was a bit hard to scrape off the rubber cement (since it was just a thin “coat”). Well, this was my first time doing that technique, I think I’ll need to practice some more at it.

Left to do: installing the plastic windows and wood barn doors. Got lots of them to install (17? – which is just from the front half, the back half has a similar amount). There are two celestory things on the roof (one in front, one in back), as well as two dormers (same), and two cupolas, which look pretty cool. Never done a cupola before. Then, we have to glue on the various exhaust vents, and maybe some signs and a billboard (or two). Of course, almost forgot, have to glue on the two roofs, the roof for the two staircases, and the roofs for the extensions. Looks like there are going to be two docks as well. I’m going to estimate at least 4-5 more evenings or effort.

I’m pretty excited about this one – coming up with the idea to merge two (same) kits together. Other modelers have had this idea, especially with combining two different kits together – something called “kit bashing”.